And it's starting to pop up in San Diego as people who years ago decided they wanted a $109,000 electric car are taking delivery and turning heads.

“We want to show that green can be fun,” real estate agent Gregg Neuman said as he stood outside his downtown San Diego condo showing off the black Roadster he and his wife picked up a week ago.

“I knew I wanted to go to something that was green, something a little more responsible,” said his wife, Marietta, who commutes in the Tesla to San Diego State University to work as a nurse practitioner.

Tesla owners are the well-heeled pioneers in a movement that could change the way people drive, as some turn to the electric grid rather than the gas pump to power their driving.

Other plug-in cars from startup California automakers are due out this year – the Fisker Karma, to be made in Orange County, and the Aptera 2e, to be made in Vista.

Detroit's first plug-in, the Chevrolet Volt, is expected next year, but the Obama administration, which has General Motors on a short leash after agreeing to prop it up financially, is concerned that the Volt will be too expensive to attract a lot of buyers.

Other carmakers – Chrysler, Ford, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Saturn and Toyota – also plan to sell plug-in cars in the near future.

But for those who have the cash and the foresight, the Tesla is the first out of the blocks.

Able to go 0-60 in less than four seconds, and with a top speed of 125 mph, the two-seater built by a Silicon Valley startup company embodies the idea that green can be fun.

With a list price of $109,000, it's a message a precious few can afford, acknowledged Rob Wilder of Encinitas, who got his Tesla last month.

Rebates, tax credits and other incentives dropped his outlay to $79,000, but he admits that his car is “ridiculously expensive.” Tesla says Wilder got the 250th car produced.

But its purchase should help the company develop more affordable cars, said Wilder, whose company, WilderShares, tracks renewable energy stocks.

“The point is to try to get these things down to $30,000,” he said. “To do that, you have to start somewhere.”

Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad compares her company's development plan to those of gaming consoles or cell phones, extravagantly expensive when introduced.

“If you didn't have the early, affluent buyers, the companies wouldn't have had the seed money to make lower-priced versions for the rest of us,” she said. “The goal of the company is not to sell a bunch of six-figure sports cars. . . . The goal of the company is to advance the electrification of the entire fleet that all of us drive.”

Tesla was founded in 2003 by Elon Musk, who made a dot-com fortune from selling PayPal to eBay. With funding from other tech entrepreneurs, including Google's founders, the company set out to do what Detroit had not – build an electric car that people would buy.